18-year-old Carizma Maynard was an animal lover, an independent spirit, and quiet - but outspoken when she needed to be.

"I know from stories that kids told me, she always stood up for the underdog," said her mother, Kimberly Winter. "I was told she told the whole class one time to shut up, because they were making fun of a boy and that made me proud to know that she stood up for what she believed in."

Now that she no longer has a voice, her mother is stepping up for her.

Carizma was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend in June of 2020.

"She felt like in her heart and in her mind, she could help this guy, that's what I really believe," said Kimberly's husband, Wayne Winter.

"I do too," said Kimberly. "I believe he was the underdog, and she was trying to save him, and there's some people you just can't save"

Kimberly says a loss like this changes you on a molecular level.

"I go on with my life, I go to work and I do everything I'm supposed to do," she said, "but there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Carizma."

Kimberly had experienced domestic violence in previous relationships.

"I know what it's like to be there and to feel like you're stuck, but there is always a way out," she said.

She wants people to know that domestic abuse comes in many forms, and it may not always be physical - until it's too late.

"In Carizma's case, the first time he went ballistic, she said. "It was bad. It was the worst possible outcome you could come up with."

She also wants people to know, domestic abuse can happen to anyone.

"It happened in a little bity town to an 18 year old - of 4,000 people - this stuff isn't supposed to happen but it does," she said.

Kimberly copes by telling Carizma's story, doing her part to prevent this from happening to others.

"I've talked to two women personally who told me after hearing the story of Carizma, they weren't going to go back to the man they had been with," she said. "So that's my purpose now, just to try to get somebody else not to go back."

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